Poem of the Day: "There Once Was a Time"

Does no one remember how?

Straighten your tie or skirt,
And just make it to the "A" train.
Hurry, hurry, don't be late!
Make it on that choo-choo from Chattanooga.

Dance to the Boogie Woogie jazz
Of a Company B bugle boy.
Grab your girl; go out together,
Dancing cheek to cheek.

Smiling, sigh as you listen to
The murmur of the cottonwood trees.
Quietly, now, so you can hear
Those Muskrats Ramble. 

Wander through life's hidden valleys,
That Sentimental Journey.
Stop to kiss the daisies—
The glen's little String of Pearls.

Can only poems preserve
The glory of the past?

Challenge of the Day

Use this sentence in an excerpt from an action/adventure novel:
"Her face was covered by a layer of dust and grime, making her fiery eyes stand out even more than they usually did. This time though, the fire was extinguished. She was prepared, waiting for the imminent threat that was looming ever closer; whispering in our ears, choking out any hope of freedom. Death."

 

I glanced down at Ellie. Her face was covered by a layer of dust and grime, making her fiery eyes stand out even more than they usually did. This time though, the fire was extinguished. She was prepared, waiting for the imminent threat that was looming ever closer; whispering in our ears, choking out any hope of freedom. Death. Swallowing my pride, I took her pale hand in mine and squeezed it. I don't really know what I aimed to convey in that gesture, except maybe the obvious: that she wasn't alone. Sometimes people need to be reminded of the obvious— having spent so long overlooking it, they've forgotten how to see it. She turned her amber-caramel eyes up at me and I could've sworn I saw moisture them. I looked away, unwilling to witness the tears rolling down her cheeks. Ellie didn't cry. That was one of the reasons she was a not-too-bad little sister. Ellie did not cry.
But then, the government didn't hunt down and kill harmless orphaned kids, either, and yet here we all were.
"They're coming," Ty grunted beside me, his gun emitting sinister snaps as he loaded it. He had a certain flair for stating the apparent.
A dead hush came over our rag-tag band of underage fugitives. We all heard it— car engines. They were here.
No one moved. The air was so flat, I believed everyone must've been holding their breath, to keep the ripples of their exhales from marring the air's surface. Car doors slammed. Voices. They weren't even trying for stealth. Ty and I exchanged a wary glance, and understood we were both thinking the same thing: If they don't think we're even worth the effort of surprising, what chance to we have of survival?
Our odds were shriveling exponentially, with each additional second of inaction.
Ty rose, gun cocked, and demanded with difficulty, "Well then, what're we waiting for?"
Murmurs of agreement shuffled through the dingy motel room, and —like a bolt of lightning had suddenly decided to strike every heart— a great scrambling ensued as our troop of child soldiers readied for battle. I tried not to allow myself to think. I couldn't bear the involuntary calculations of predicted value and probability of death count. Most of them I'd known a grand total of five days, but there's a peculiar comradery found in being on the run for your life that made me almost believe I'd known them all my life.
I was loading my gun— or rather, the gun I'd picked off a careless security guard two weeks prior— when Ty sauntered over, strapping a backpack to his back.
"Hey Mike," Ty wondered as though on a whim, "If you die, can I have your car?"
I smirked, genuinely amused, despite the gravity of the situation. Why did everything always seem to get funnier the more dire the situation got? "Dude, if I'm dead, you're dead too. You wouldn't last a minute without me always saving your skin." I'd meant it jokingly, but when you're staring death straight in the face, a whole new world of meanings suddenly pop up, and nothing can just be taken for its literal weight anymore.
"Yeah, man," he agreed, clamping his hand on my shoulder, "You've always got my back." We stared at each other, unmoving, the fear that we hid from the others blazing plainly in our eyes. We'd had close calls, we'd fought them before, but that was when it was just the three of us— me, Ty, and El. And this time, they'd gotten us cornered.
I'd known Ty longer than the others: we'd been classmates. We hadn't actually been friends until I'd discovered three weeks ago that the government was after me and Ellie and we went running. Ty joined us two days later, after his mom was shot by one of our pursuers, and we'd been on the road since, alternately lying low and driving as far away from home as possible. In our most recent scrape with the government agents (we assumed FBI agents), we stole a file (we hoped had made them angry FBI agents) that contained names of the next seven targets on their list— all of whom we promptly sought out and accumulated into our tragic running group of kids age 5-17. Now we— Ty and me, the oldest— had been granted the responsibility of leading a ten-kid army of orphans with practically no money and no resources. We'd resorted to stealing, which I wasn't proud of, but at least we'd made it this far, with the government on our tail for three weeks.
After a broad expanse of silent between us, Ty cleared his throat, and gave me one last consolatory slap on the back, before he moved back to Tina and Norman, to offer last-minute words of encouragement and advice.

Poem of the Day: "Perseverance"

I am tired.

Tired like the sea 

After a hurricane.

Tired like purple cumulus 

That have carried rain for too long.

Tired like the bottom-most rocks

That hold up the mountain.

But I cannot rest.

The sea cannot stop rolling and waving,

Even after the storm.

The clouds cannot drop from the sky

To rest their weary arms.

The rocks cannot stop toiling

And let the mountain crumble to the ground.

And so, we go on.

The world is held together by the tired ones

Who go on. 

Challenge of the Day

Use this sentence in an action/ romance novel:
"The dark waves churned below me, just as did my love for her. As I stood looking over the cliff, I knew what had to be done."

 

It was purple. I hated the thing. Purple was such a boring color, anyhow. Like a big, fat, lethargic plum that just sits there being fat. Ugly, bruised, unhealthful. Purple was a slow color, too— even took too long to say. But take blue for example. One quick sound. You can say it all in one motion— one gusty exhale. Nice and crisp, a living waterfall. But no. It had to be purple.
I crushed the small flower in my fist. I felt sick and fearful and dizzyingly angry all at once. Purple. The verdict had been decided: death. They didn't need her anymore.
The wind whipped around me, hissing threats in my stinging, frozen ears. It was cold by the sea, even though it was summer. I glared down at the ripping water from the top of the cliff. The hair on my exposed arms stood up in the chill of the wind, but I'd stood there in spite of it for a good half an hour, battling myself. I hadn't dressed for the cold: jeans and navy t-shirt. I'd dressed for school— that's where I was supposed to be. But just before I'd headed out the door to school, I glanced at the windowsill in the front hallway. And there it was: the purple flower. The code for death.
Ever since The Rebirth— since the overthrown of the American government by the Esenichs— they'd wanted Jules. She was special— she should've been dead. But she was too strong for that. And they wanted to know why. Every other day she'd been escorted to the recently renamed Washington Institute of Research (now the Grand Republic of Esenich Research Facility) for testing and questioning. They'd cut off her ties with almost everyone, especially me, but of course we had our own means of covert communication.
Then the news came. They had found something in Juliet. They wouldn't tell what, but it scared them— Jules could tell. They took her in for good, and wouldn't let her out to see anyone. But Jules is smart— and, well, special. She can do the impossible— she'd broken out last night, unnoticed, to see me. She said they would be holding a meeting the next morning— a trial, more like— to decide what to do with her. Like she was dangerous. Like she was a criminal. Like she deserved suffering for what she was.
So we'd decided on a code. Once Juliet's fate was decided, she would put a flower on my sill. Color was key. Yellow meant still undecided. Blue meant free and clear: they were letting her go. But purple— purple meant death. The simple fact that we had to plan for this option tells you a lot about what life is like in the two-year-old Grand Republic of Esenich.
I'd forgotten the cold. Staring down numbly at the wild Atlantic below, I wondered vaguely whether it would still be called the Atlantic a year from now, or whether they'd rename that, too. Then I wondered whether or not I'd still be alive in a year to find out, and I laughed out loud, bitterly. Jules certainly wouldn't be. I began to ponder how they'd kill her, and how soon, but then I felt like I was going to throw up, so I shoved it out of my mind.
The dark waves churned below me, just as did my love for her. As I stood looking over the cliff, I knew what had to be done.
Turning back, I ran all the way home. My family wouldn't be there. My father had fallen in combat during the invasion, and my grandfather, who'd lived with us until The Rebirth, had been executed for noncompliance shortly thereafter. It was just Mom and me now, but she'd be at work by this time, at the factories. Sprinting upstairs to my parents' room, I reached my father's nightstand and yanked open the drawer. I dug down to the very bottom and finally recovered his old gun and some ammo. Even after my breathing should have calmed down from running, I couldn't catch my breath. This was suicide. Skipping school was bad enough, under the new Esenich school policies. . . but this? This was insanity.
But really, how could I do any different? They'd probably kill me eventually, anyway. Better to go down fighting, while I still had the strength to fight. And regardless of the fuzziness of my brain, being muddled with fear and anger, one thing was clear: I was going to save Jules. Or at any rate, try. Or die trying.